The Nonstop Garden Offers Four Seasons of Pleasure: Book Review for Bookpleasures.com

July 2, 2010
Allan in Book Reviews, Jennifer Benner, Stephanie Cohen, The Nonstop Garden, all season gardens, gardening book reviews, instant gardens

The Nonstop Garden, Stephanie Cohen & Jennifer Benner, Timber Press

Over the past few years, several books have been published offering advice for creating beautiful and interesting gardens, in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of fuss. These manuals allow the harried and the multi-taskers to circumvent the fascinating garden journey of trial, error, and discovery in order to experience almost instant success in gardening. Gardening manuals, that are clear and easy to read and that are neither encyclopedic nor all-encompassing in scope, are helping to create unique horticultural experiences for busy people. The Nonstop Gardener is such a book. The authors make it possible to work with recommended plants to quickly create attractive all season gardens that are almost the equal of those developed by experienced gardeners through years of experimentation.

Some of my gardenwriter colleagues, who are traditional in their approach to gardening, are dismayed. They are disappointed that the new gardener will not experience the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of discovery and the fascination of watching a plant develop its personality. They insist that the essence of gardening will be lost and that a rich and rewarding hobby will become a hollow activity. I understand their concerns. However, I also understand the very real needs of the new gardener. Why should multi tasking people, whose time is precious, not be able to create a beautiful garden without fuss and without burdensome background information? In a world that can given us frozen pizza that tastes like delivery, a successful instant garden should be accessible to those that need them.

Some of us choose to experience a rich quantity of life. Immersing ourselves in that style of living leaves little room to enjoy most journeys because we are in a rush to get to the destinations. This book is about one specific destination - a garden that it is beautiful and interesting all year long. Such a garden includes trees, shrubs, and perennials, “the main attractions’. These are followed by “the supporting cast” namely, bulbs, annuals, tropicals, edibles and vines. The authors round out their recommendations with “the finishing touches” which include ornamentation, containers, structures and seasonal interest.

The essence of this book is that a non stop garden is better because it requires less maintenance, provides continual beauty, allows more creativity, and encourages diversity. To further simplify the process, the authors include the names of no less than forty seven sites that sell plants suitable for such gardens. Newbie gardeners often become overwhelmed by all of the information that they need to process in order to garden successfully. Not any more; The Nonstop Garden is part of a collection of intelligent and creative garden manuals that strip away the mystique to reveal the beautiful.